> Mr Borst said, "The bans introduced in France left no significant mark on the bee mortality statistics." As it is acknowledged That there are no reliable bee mortality statistics for France I fail to see how he can make this Claim. 

I made no such claim, it was clearly a quote from the paper cited, which was written by Michael Gross, a freelance science
writer based in Oxford, UK. However, why are there no reliable bee mortality statistics in France? This has been going on for more than ten years.

The idea that insecticides from
the neonicotinoid group, such as
imidacloprid, are fatal to bees has
the longest tradition in France,
where some neonicotinoids were
banned for certain uses in 1999. By
mimicking the neurotransmitter
acetylcholine (ACh) without being
recognised by the enzyme that
normally inactivates ACh signals,
these chemicals expose the central
nervous system of insects to a
permanent bombardment with false
signals. Thus it is entirely plausible
that they may confuse bees to an
extent that they don’t find home.

Standing against the hypothesis,
however, is the observation that the
bans introduced in France left no
significant mark on the bee mortality
statistics.

a descriptive
study of the phenomenon published
by Dennis vanEngelsdorp and
coworkers at Pennsylvania State
University, US,8 also came
to the conclusion that ‘CCD
involves an interaction
between pathogens and
other stress factors’.


Chemistry World | February 2010 
www.chemistryworld.org

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm